Okay, it's not Eat, Pray, Love. But hey.
We have all these rice fields in our neighborhood. They make walking so much more enjoyable, not just for being pretty, but also for the loads of critters that reside (or visit) therein: frogs, egrets, wild ducks, snakes, jumbo snails, loaches, and a whole host of dragonflies. Even bats live in the strange covered earth ditches used for irrigation. I really like the bats. And the egrets. And the frogs and dragonflies (okay, you see where this is going).
Sadly, though, as the elderly folk get older and their children decide not to become farmers, more are being sold and built on. Almost every year we lose another three or four or five fields.
Here are some photos I took of the rice season as it is in our neighborhood. Plant. Grow. Cut.
Here's a field in spring (May?) flooded and newly planted.
With some purple.
And some more purple.
Then I didn't take any photos for months. The rice grew, turned a very lovely green and then tasseled in mid to late August. We had a small typhoon come through. Here's a bit of damage from that.
By the end of summer the fields turn from green to gold.
Here's some pics from this morning's walk.
Someone has starting cutting this field already.
After they cut all the rice they tie it and hang it like so.
It dries for a day or two and then comes the men with their threshing machine.
And finally we have a naked field. This is actually the same field as the first photo, just a different angle.
During the winter the fields remain bare and the kids are allowed to go in and play. We don't have any parks nearby so they become nice places to kick a soccer ball or throw a baseball. There. Useful all year long, the rice field. I hope they stop filling them in. Where will all the egrets go?
